


The War's Over

by RosieTarnation



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Mention of Natasha, Mention of Scott Lang - Freeform, mention of tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTarnation/pseuds/RosieTarnation
Summary: Contains huge Endgame spoilers!!!!!!Time travel didn't really seem like Steve Rogers' bag, but in the end he saw its merits.  Here's how.





	The War's Over

**Author's Note:**

> This contains Endgame spoilers!

When Scott says "time travel," Steve's first thought is about saving everyone they'd lost. It's about following this through, about bringing back the people who'd gone, about finally being able to help all the people left behind enough. It's about getting back Bucky and Sam and everyone else.   
  
His second though, though, is about him. It's a thought he'd pushed down for a decade, a thought he never really let himself entertain because even with everything he'd been through and everything he'd seen, this was too outrageous. Still, he thinks it - if he can time travel, he can go back. He can stay there. He can finally have that dance.  
  
His next thought is that this is outrageous, at best unlikely, and he lets that thought take over. He lets Scott convince him it'll work. He lets himself see this as a mission, a mission for Captain America and not a journey for Steve Rogers.   
  
He puts on his suit, he lets Tony hand him his shield. He tells himself that this is what he's meant to do. He can help people, he can end something terrible. That's the whole reason he enlisted and all this started in the first place.   
  
He'd done so much - he'd been to space and back. Hell, he was about to time travel.  
  
He'd lost so much - Peggy. Bucky. His family, his friends, his entire life. He'd lost trust in so many thing he thought he'd never lose trust in.   
  
He wasn't the man he was when he signed up for the army. He wasn't the man who flew into the water and he wasn't the man who came out. He had no idea if he could even go back, if he could handle being in the time he left, after everything he'd seen and learned.  
  
But at the base of it, he wasn't sure he was worthy. He didn't know how to go back, how to go back to her, and be the man he was now. He wanted to be the man she agreed to dance with, but that man had been gone for eighty years.  
  
\--  
  
He'd meant it when he told Natasha that some people move on, but not them.   
  
But he was wrong. Everyone on the team did move on, for better or worse. None of them were in the same place they were before.   
  
He didn't know where he should be, but he'd been trying for years and New York City just didn't feel like home. The Avengers complex didn't either, especially then. He made it work, told himself the work he was doing and the progress he was helping people make was important. It was so important that he could deal with the rest of it.  
  
But the thought kept getting louder and louder in the back of his head - in this time, he was Captain America. Plenty of people knew him as Steve Rogers, sure, but it never took long before people saw him as Captain America, too.  
  
He loved being able to help people. He loved being someone people could trust, even if now it was in a circle of chairs in a rec center gymnasium rather than in a battlefield behind a shield. He was willing to pick up the shield again, though and be that person in whatever capacity was needed.  
  
He couldn't be Steve Rogers, kid from Brooklyn anymore? Fine. He could be Captain America, called Steve by his friends, counselor and shoulder to cry on to anyone who needs it. He could be the symbol they always intended him to be, even if no one who made that symbol was around anymore. If that's what got people through it, that's what he'd do. That's how he got through it.  
  
But then the time travel plan started actually coming together. They had the resources to do it, they had the plan perfectly mapped out. It actually seemed like it would work out.  
  
And it occurred to him, as he was kicking his own ass in Stark Tower ten years in his own past, that he hadn't thought about the after. He'd spent so much time working on getting everyone through this that he hadn't thought about what would happen when they were actually through it.  
  
He would put on the shield to bring everyone back, no question.  
  
But he didn't know that he wanted to keep it on. He'd walked away from that life, settled into the one he lived now.  
  
He remembered the first time he saw that shield. He looked at it with such awe. He held it in his hands and Peggy shot at him and it just felt right.  
  
He took one last look at New York before heading to Jersey with Tony. He hadn't seen it like this in a while. He took great care to not watch news footage of that day - he didn't need the reminder. He was proud of all the work he'd done to rebuild - if he was being honest, he always sort of hated that one of his first real big memories of New York after waking up was seeing it destroyed. It was so different than the city he grew up in, but he was willing to try to make it feel like home. Then it was attacked.  
  
That's how the shield felt. It was home, it was comfortable, it was something he thought was a part of him. And suddenly, it was something that felt wrong. It felt like a past life. It felt like a fake. It wasn't part of his uniform anymore, it was a costume.  
  
\--  
  
He went to New Jersey feeling confident that he'd had his fill of time travel. He knew things changed, he knew that everything changed and there was nothing he could do. But he missed seeing things change gradually. In the ten years he'd been in his now-present, he'd seen things chance gradually. He saw buildings be built and buildings be torn down.   
  
This time travel thing, though, it was like waking up from the ice all over again. Things were different suddenly and instantly and he just had to roll with it. It was jarring the first time - waking up in 2011 and walking out to cars unlike any he'd ever seen, clothes that looked just downright weird, televisions on the street that were bigger than the walls of the house he grew up in. But it was jarring going backward too - going from holograms and nanotech to fax machines and phones with cords.  
  
Then he found himself in SHIELD Director Margaret Carter's office.  
  
He had purposefully tried not to see her. He hadn't planned on finding her. He didn't want to see her.  
  
He thought maybe seeing her, it would feel like seeing a ghost. He'd gone to her funeral years earlier, after all.  
  
But it wasn't like that. It wasn't like seeing a ghost. She wasn't the ghost. He was.  
  
It hurt. It hurt seeing her. It was the most he'd let himself feel anything since he'd left 1945 and it hurt.  He didn't want to be a ghost, not with her.  
  
She looked just as beautiful as the day he left her. She looked so in her element - in charge, in control, and completely thriving in it all.  
  
He always regretted that he wasn't there to see her be this person. Of all the things he missed with her, this particularly stung. He could imagine what their life could have been together all he wanted (and he did, way more often than he liked to admit) but this is what their actual time together was. This was the Peggy he fell in love with. This was the Peggy he knew.  
  
He left and told himself it was for the best. He knew he couldn't see her, he couldn't get any closer, he couldn't engage with her at all. There was a mission to be completed.  
And aside from that, he had no idea what he'd say. He had no idea if she'd even want to see him.  
  
He knew he was so, so different from the man she loved. Here she was, achieving everything she always thought she would, everything she told him she would, and more. And he was hiding. He'd been hiding for years. He loved her and he always would.

But maybe he didn't deserve her. Maybe that time had passed. She was living her life, he was living his. He did have a life in New York, he did have friends and plans and all of that. Maybe it was time to really lean in to it. Maybe once all this was done, he could really let himself hang up the shield.  
  
He couldn't be with her and he had to accept that. He could still be a man worthy of her love, even just in memory.  Maybe it was better that he was a ghost to her, even if he hated it.  
  
\--  
  
Natasha was his first friend in his new life. Sure, he was friendly with lots of people - he was Captain America; everyone wanted to get a drink with him at first.  
But Natasha, she and he really got each other. They didn't always agree on everything but they had each other's backs. They loved each other. She could see Steve and Captain America, the same way he could see Natasha and the Black Widow.  
  
And then she died.  
  
She died saving them. She died saving everyone, the ultimate sacrifice with no going back to make sure that everyone who was lost could return.  
  
He'd entertained the idea of hanging up his shield, like he knew she entertained the idea of packing it in, too. They'd talked about it, talked circles around it, and both come to the conclusion that they were just needed too much. That this is who they were, whether they liked it or not. That this was who they needed to be.  
  
Nat put that away, though. Clint told Steve, he told him how Natasha had fought him tooth and nail to be the one to go. And she didn't do it as the Black Widow, superspy. She did it as Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton's oldest friend, someone who knew his family and was his son's godmother. She didn't do it as the Black Widow, looking to finally balance her ledger. She did it as Natasha Romanov, a good person who did anything she could for the ones she loved. She didn't die as the woman they made her. She died as herself.  
  
Steve didn't want to die as Captain America. He wasn't thrilled by the prospect but it was something he had accepted. He accepted it, that is, until Scott mentioned time travel.  
  
And he fought it so hard. He didn't want to die as Cap but that's who he was made to be and he couldn't make himself into someone else then, with all those eyes on him. He could walk away from the shield all he wanted; it would still pull him back.  
  
Steve Rogers was worthy of being Captain America all those years ago. But maybe now, Captain America couldn't be Steve Rogers.  
  
\--  
  
Steve never went into a battle really expecting not to come out of it. He didn't expect anything, but he sure hoped for a lot. That final battle with Thanos, with Tony and Thor at his side, he was more unsure that he'd make it out than he'd ever been.  
  
And he was okay with that.  
  
He believed in the team. He believed in the mission, this mission. He really, truly believed that if this was how he died, that would be okay. It wasn't ideal, but it was okay.  The team would be okay, the planet would be okay.  
  
But he didn't die. And Tony did. And Tony left behind his family - Pepper and Morgan and Peter and Happy.   
  
The days after were a haze - Tony Stark's funeral was the last place he ever expected to be (including space). Tony always had an answer for everything, he always had a solution. Until he didn't.

\--

Looking back, Steve knew he wouldn't be able to find an exact moment when he decided he was going to go.  
  
He went into the battle accepting that he could die and he left as a man worthy to hold Mjolnir. If his mind wasn't made up before, it was then. It was strange, putting so much stock into this hammer from another planet, but Steve believed in it. Thor had lost so much and he was working his way back, with both Mjolnir and Stormbreaker declaring him worthy.  
  
Steve had lost so much, and he was starting to believe that for once he could actually have something. He could have more. He didn't have to keep losing. He was a humble man, but he was starting to let himself see that he deserved to be happy. He deserved the chance, at least.  He deserved more.  
  
Looking around at Tony's funeral, seeing all the people he touched and wondering where the hell they all go from there, it finally clicked for Steve.  
  
Moving on doesn't always mean moving forward.  
  
\--  
  
"You can come with me."  
  
"Come on, no I can't."  
  
"Bucky-."  
  
"Steve," Bucky said with finality. His tone was calm, his eyes were warm. He was so, so glad to be back with his best friend, even if he was about to lose him. "I can't go back. I went into that war, I didn't come home. I'm here now. That's it."  
  
"You could say the same about me."  
  
"You left someone behind," Bucky said. "Your time was cut short. You deserve to have it back."  
  
Steve nodded, jaw clenched tight. He knew there was no convincing Bucky. He didn't really think Bucky would come back, it just felt right to offer the invitation.  
  
"I'm going to miss you, Buck."  
  
"You too, Steve," Bucky said, pulling him in for a hug. He sighed. It still was so strange hugging Steve and being smaller than him, after all this time.  
  
He wasn't a scrappy kid from Brooklyn anymore. Neither of them were.  
  
"Til the end of the line," Steve said quietly.  
  
Bucky laughed. "We're 105 years old, Steve. I think we've made it far enough on the line."  
  
Steve laughed, too, and pulled back.  
  
"You're going to be okay here?" he asked. He knew the answer, but he was always going to worry about Bucky. Old habits died hard.  
  
"Yes," Bucky assured him. He got a sudden flashback to a time he got into a fight with some drunk guy at a Dodgers game who wouldn't stop catcalling his date, and Steve tried to jump in and end it. Steve lost two teeth that day. "I'm fine here. I belong here."  
  
Steve nodded.  
  
"And you belong back there, bud. The war's over, Steve."  
  
Steve nodded a few times, trying to keep the tears back. "Yeah, it is."  
  
\--  
  
He'd done his research. He's found out Peggy Carter's address in 1945 before he left. Picking the day to go back was tricky - he didn't want to go back before the war ended and get roped back into all of it, but he didn't want her mourning him anymore.  
  
So he stood there, in front of her apartment door on a warm September morning, a bouquet of flowers in his sweaty hands. He knocked on the door and stood there, tapping his empty hand against his pant leg in an attempt to calm his nerves.  
  
It didn't work.  
  
What did calm his nerves was the door opening, revealing a very stunned Peggy.  
  
She opened her mouth and no words came out. It occurred to him that this was the first time in eighty years that he left her at a loss for words. His heart skipped a beat as he realized that he would have countless more opportunities to do so.

He smiled wide.  He really didn't think she could get anymore beautiful, that she could amaze him anymore.  But, she did.  
  
"I'm sorry I'm late."

**Author's Note:**

> I fucking love Steve Rogers and Endgame was really good and reminded me just how much I love him and how much I love Peggy Carter. I really loved Steve's arc in this film and it inspired me to write this. Enjoy!


End file.
